We made some slow-cooker chili today (nothing better to coming home to dinner already being done). To compliment it, my wife made skillet-baked cornbread. The recipe (which I've put below) is from A Chef's Kitchen, an incredible restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia. Worth the money if you're ever in the area.

Place a well-seasoned, 10-inch (base measurement) cast iron skillet in the oven. Preheat to 450 degrees F (232 C). Allow the pan to stay in the oven for five minutes after the oven is pre-heated to ensure that it's fully heated.

Meanwhile, place the corn meal, sugar, kosher salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a mixing bowl and mix together. Add the egg and buttermilk and mix until smooth.

Once the skillet's ready, toss in the butter. Allow it to melt and brown, swirling to coat the pan and edges. Pour in the batter. Return the skillet to the oven (still at 450 degrees) and bake for 12-15 minutes or until firm in the center and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Turn the cornbread out onto a cutting board, presenting it bottom-side up.

A quick note: as soon as you combine the wet and dry ingredients, the chemical reactions that make it rise begin. So you want as little time as possible between when you do this and when you put the batter into the pan.

Oh that's a beautiful crust on that cornbread. My family always made it in a skillet and ate it with honey and butter too. And I like that the recipe doesn't have as much sweetness as most recipes.

Did you miss an ingredient or measurement? The ratios in yours are different than ours. I think our recipe was 1 c. cornmeal, 1 c flour, 2 eggs, and either 1 c milk, 1/3 c. vegetable oil, 1/4 c honey, and the rest was similar. Together the milk, oil, and eggs, and honey totaled about 2 cups, so we had about a 1:1 ratio of dry to wet ingredients.

Beautiful! I wanted to make cornbread last week, but I can't find cornmeal in Norway. Found a cornmeal-free recipe (if you can believe it) that relies on corniness by instead including a can of corn niblets, but haven't tried it yet. Your recipe fills me with envy and longing!

Awesome. I'm going to make it myself tomorrow. Looks and sounds amazing. Nice touch with tips and unit conversion btw. That way a muggle like me can attempt this wizardry. ;)

One general tip for checking baked goods by the way: toothpicks aren't all that convenient for some of them. Wooden stick (about as wide as a toothpick) for making shashliki is easier to handle. Most of them are about 20-25cm (WU: 8 to 10 inches) long. With them, you can easily check pies, bread or whatever else you bake slightly 'sideways' and for virtually any depth.

Took me a little longer to get to it, but it went very close to my expectations (read: really good). Went amazingly well with beef gravy and fried onions. No photos as I was too starved to care about them in the first place.

Honey butter turned out to be far too sweet for me, but I'm one of those freaks who actually like 99% dark chocolate and never adds any sugar to coffee, so I don't think it's representative in any meaningful way. My dormmate graciously took it (along with the recipe) from me and really liked it. ;)

About sticks/toothpicks, I was kinda expecting that wouldn't be all that popular/ known/ applicable. That's part of the reason why I wanted to share it. These sticks are literally everywhere around these parts, though.